LIFE
1080 Adelard was born in Bath around this date.
1088 The rebellion in favour of Robert of Normandy was crushed by his
brother William Rufus. Bath had been badly damaged and was sold to the newly
appointed Bishop of WELLS for £500.
1090 Bishop John of Tours (also called John de Villula) transferred
his
seat from Wells to Bath, and began to build a great new cathedral here.
Adelard is thought to have attended the school of the Benedictine.
Monastery which became the cathedral priory.
1100 Adelard was sent to Tours, one of the great cathedral schools
founded by Charlemagne, where he will have studied the seven liberal arts:- the
trivium (grammar, rhetoric and dialectic) and the quadrivium (arithmetic,
geometry, astronomy and music).
1105 He was in France where he played the cithar (a stringed
instrument --
forerunner of the guitar) to the queen. This must have been Matilda , wife of
Henry I. In " De eodem et diverso"he describes how a little boy was so carried
away by the rhythm of the music that he waved his arms with great enthusiasm
causing the company to laugh aloud. Queen Matilda is said to have been "generous
to poor scholars and musicians".
He began to travel widely visiting Salerno, famous for its school of medicine,
Sicily, now a Norman Kingdom, Greece and probably Toledo.
1106 In this year he returned to Bath He witnessed a charter for
Bishop John. He was then serving as a member of the Bishop`s staff, his name
being included among those of the "ministri".
1107 He was in LAON acting as tutor to his nephew and some other
students.
Here he probably wrote "Regule Abaci ", a treatise on the use of the Abacus,
(an early form of calculating apparatus.) It is dedicated to his "dear friend H"
most likely one of his students. His philosophical work : "De eodem et diverso"
must have been written about this time also. It is dedicated to William, Bishop
of Syracuse (1108-1116) In this he discusses the problem of identity and
diversity in the form of an allegory.
He describes how he walked one evening at
Tours beside the river Loire with one of his teachers and met two matrons -
Philosophia and Philocosmia. The views of the first are represented by each of
the seven liberal arts in personifications which appear in turn. Philocosmia has
as her handmaidens Riches, Power, Honour, Fame and Pleasure. It is of course
Philosophia who wins Adelard's heart.
1109 He set off on his travels again. In the next seven years, he visited
Sicily, Italy , Asia Minor, Spain and probably North Africa.
1114 He was in Manistra, near Antioch on a bridge at the time of an
earthquake. He may have obtained important Arabic manuscripts in this area.
1116 He had probably returned to England. Here he set about writing `Quaestiones
Naturales`. In it he speaks of his desire to discover the manners and customs of
his own country. He says that `he has learned that its chief men are violent,
its magistrates wine-lovers, its judges mercenary, its patrons fickle, private
men sycophants, those who make promises deceitful, friends full of jealousy, and
almost all men self-seekers`. This book is in the form of a dialogue between
uncle and nephew. The nephew asks 76 questions concerned with natural phenomena
; these include : Why is the sea salt? Why do some animals see better at night?
How is the globe supported in the air? What causes tides?
Adelard thought there need be no conflict between science and religion. "I will
detract nothing from God;" he wrote," for whatever is, is from him and by him;
yet not even this is said vaguely and without due care, as we must listen to the
very limits of human knowledge: only where this utterly breaks down, should we
refer things to God." This book is dedicated to Richard, Bishop of Bayeux
(appointed 1107). It was first printed in l480.
At about the same time he was writing "De Cura Accipitrum" a treatise on the
care of falcons. He tells us it is based on the "books of King Harold". It shows
a wide knowledge of English herbs and of the diseases of falcons, and also an
understanding of the practice of falconry.
Medicinal plants referred to include:-columbine; radish; St. John`s wort;
mallow; spindle tree; blackthorn; cinquefoil; hawthorn; apple; stonecrop;
parsley; ivy; broom; elecampane; wormwood (artemisia absinthium); ash; gromwell
(lithospermum); water figwort; water betony; wild thyme; basil thyme; wild
basil; betony; red dock; oak; leek; duckweed.
After 1116. During the ensuing years Adelard made two important translations
from the Arabic. The first was `The thirteen books of Euclid`s Elements of
Geometry`. The original was written c. 300 BC in Alexandria. No Latin version
had survived the Dark Ages but two translations had been made from Greek into
Arabic in the eighth and ninth centuries. Adelard`s translation, was used by
Roger Bacon in the next century and became the basis of all editions in Europe
until 1533.
Al-khwarizmi`s Zij (or Astronomical tables) were also translated by Adelard.
Since the original no longer exists, Adelard`s version is very important.
Other works translated by Adelard were three texts on astrology:- Centiloquium
Ptolomei; `Isagoge Minor `(shorter introduction to astronomy) by Abu Ma`shar and
the Liber prestigiorum Thebidis, a book on the theory of images by Thabit b.
Qurra. He may also have translated a short book on chiromancy from the Greek.
1130. In this year Adelard was granted a small sum of money (or a fine
was remitted) from the revenues of Wiltshire according to an entry in the Pipe
Roll. It is thought likely that this was a reward for work done at the Exchequer
and that Adelard would have been familiar with the accounting methods used there
(based on a chequered cloth laid on a large table) which are known to have been
taught at Laon.
1142 Ten royal horoscopes have recently been attributed to Adelard.
They have been linked with events in 1149 and 1151. One records a meeting
between a master and a former pupil, who might be Adelard and Henry II. Adelard
may have acted as tutor in mathematics to the young Henry when he was in Bristol
with his mother, Matilda, in 1142 - 1146, staying in the house there of his
uncle Robert of Gloucester, natural son of Henry I.
Late in his career, Adelard wrote a treatise on the astrolabe - ` De opere
astrolapsus`. It is dedicated to Henry, nephew or grandson (nepos) of the king. With the astrolabe it was possible to calculate the height
of a building, the depth of pits and wells and also the longitude and latitude
of any place. Since it showed the positions of the stars and planets in relation
to the signs of the zodiac, it was also used for astrological predictions. Perhaps its most important use was in telling the time by day or by night; it
continued to be used for navigation well into the l7th Century.
1160. The last of the royal horoscopes is thought to have been cast by
Adelard in this year. It is not known when Adelard died or where he is buried.
Little remains of the great Norman cathedral which may have been completed
before his death, although part of the floor may be seen through a grating on
the right of the Alphege chapel in the Abbey, and the base of the pillars of the
crossing can be seen outside the east end. A section in the Abbey Heritage
Vaults is devoted to Adelard,
Sources:-Adelard of Bath, the First English Scientist by Louise Cochrane;
British Museum Press l994. Dictionary of National Biography: Adelard; Matilda;
John de Villula etc. . Encyclopaedia Britannica: Adelard; Euclid; . Dodi ve
Nechti by Israel Gollancz (London l920) contains the first translations into
English of Adelard's Quaestiones Naturales, as well as a later Hebrew version. |
